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Saturday, December 19, 2015

The video above tells a seriously messed up story—and it’s quite good. It’s an unexpected, yet kind of awesome look at a character from a beloved 25-year-old movie, and it all relates to Christmas.

The video is the premiere episode of the new web series, :DRYVRS, created by Jack Dishel, who stars as a rider and user of on-demand driver services (like Über and Lyft). In the series, Dishel meets various drivers through the app, and the videos tell the story of what happens next. This episode was released on December 17 and already has over 7 million views.

In the debut episode, “Just Me in the House by Myself”, Dishel meets Macaulay Culkin, who is playing a grown up version of Kevin McCallister, the 8-year-old boy he played in the hit 1990 movie, Home Alone. Let’s just say, that experience left an indelible mark on Kevin.

Culkin, who is now 35, looks every bit as crazed as the character should—and I think he did a really good job. I haven’t seen much of his work since Home Alone, and nothing particularly recent. In fact, pretty much all I’ve known of him was his portrayal in the tabloids, which mainstream newsmedia love to report even as they actively condemn the medium they got the story from. It was good to see him acting again.

I think the series looks promising: The acting and direction were good, and the story was just bizarre enough to really appeal to me. So, I liked the premiere episode.

Web series like this are among the many ways that entertainment is now being delivered, and often for free (as so much content is these days). It’s a good way for emerging artists—musicians, filmmakers, authors, actors, singers, etc.—to both hone their craft and develop an audience. The relatively low cost of content creation and delivery is what makes this a viable thing to do.

These days, there certainly are plenty of ways to be entertained, whether you’re home alone or not.